Promotion quota: PL Punia demands benefit for OBCs

Punia has demanded that OBCs too should be extended reservation in promotions, as they avail reservations at entry levels and face similar obstacle

NEW DELHI: Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati's determination to force the government to table a bill creating reservation in promotions to Dalits and Tribals in government service is matched by the Samajwadi Party's implacable resolve to block any such move. Now, a letter written by chairman of the national commission for SC/STs, PL Punia to the ministry of social justice and empowerment, has added another dimension to the debate. Punia has demanded that OBCs too should be extended reservation in promotions, as they avail reservations at entry levels and face similar obstacles.

"A conscious decision was taken by the Government of India to extend reservations in services in direct recruitment to Other Backward Classes in order to ensure participation of this section of society in governance and decision making. There are certain levels where direct recruitment is not held and unless we extend the reservation in promotions to OBCs at that level we shall not have their participation in those levels on government," said the letter sent in June.

Punia told ET that this was also done to make sure "there was equity and no division between classes facing discrimination." Congress MP Hanumantha Rao too has demanded the same through the OBC MPs forum in Parliament. This demand, emanating from a section of Congress, a BSP leader said, was unacceptable to it. "There is no comparison between the two sections, and we don't know what is behind this," the BSP MP said. The Samajwadi Party too had not made any such demand, instead their statements were more towards making sure that the bill on quotas for promotions for SC/STs was blocked.

"If this bill is cleared, then you can be sure that in a few years not a single officer from privileged castes would be at secretary level or in the top echelons of the bureaucracy," said SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav. He said he had not heard of any extension programme for OBCs. "Let the government put its view forward," he said. UPA had tried to introduce the bill on the last day of the monsoon session. Mayawati does not look like she would let the government get away without getting the bill cleared.